“If you want to sleep well, treat yourself like a baby.”

happy dream day

Today is World Sleep Day, and Dr. Krieger, one of the leading experts on the subject, wanted to celebrate it in Barcelona by giving a keynote lecture invited by Socap (Catalan Society of Pulmonology). A researcher and professor at Yale School of Medicine, he is a pioneer in the field of sleep medicine and has treated more than 30,000 patients. He is the editor-in-chief of the most widely used textbook in sleep medicine, Principles and practice of sleep medicine, which is in its 7th edition. He has chaired the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and received major awards. He was the first person to describe sleep apnea in America. But despite being one of the people who knows most about sleep and insomnia, he likes to emphasize all that we do not know, that remains to be investigated.

What are the secrets of sleep?

There are many. First of all, all forms of life, from bacteria, plants, trees, grass and animals, sleep.

And?

Sleep is one of the most mysterious phenomena in our life.

Are there any secrets to sleep stages?

While scientists in the 1880s believed that sleep was a reversible death, it took us a hundred years to understand that there was great electrical activity in the brain during sleep and that there were different phases of this activity.

You call the REM stage a “mystical state.”

Brain activity is very high, very similar to the waking state, which is why the French call it paradoxical sleep. During REM sleep we are not able to control many of our bodily functions.

For example?

Our muscles become inactive, breathing and heart rate become irregular. At that stage we are like lizards: we don’t even control our temperature, and we don’t even understand it.

What else don’t we understand?

A baby spends half his time in REM: is he dreaming? And if so, what are you dreaming about? We have millions of unanswered questions. Did you know that whenever a man dreams he gets an erection?

And how many dreams do you see in a night?

From three to five in the night. And whenever a woman dreams, the blood vessels in her vagina swell; And it’s not anything sexual.

You discovered sleep apnea.

I described it in my country in the seventies: stop breathing while sleeping and then wake up. Having recently graduated in Pulmonology and being a resident doctor, one night I saw a patient who was having seizures while sleeping. He was at the right place and right time. Ultimately I performed a tracheostomy.

45 million adults in your country do not get restful sleep.

Yes, and about 20% of the world’s population has problems, for example you must have apnea.

Do you know it from my face?

Yes, I have noticed that thin women with long faces and sloping chins usually have sleep apnea.

Are we a sleepless society?

Yes, and it causes many accidents. Sleepiness was decisive in the Chernobyl nuclear plant explosion, the Challenger space shuttle accident or the Gulf oil spill. Exxon Valdez,

And does it cause us diseases?

Sleep apnea can cause heart attacks, strokes and accelerate cognitive decline.

Do we wake up five times an hour?

Yes, for seconds, 25 or 30 times a night, but you only remember it when you wake up for several minutes. We don’t know why this happens.

And ramp up while we sleep?

We don’t even know, but it is very common in pregnant women, probably due to electrolyte disorders.

There is too much consumption of sleeping pills.

That should be the last option. There is a large body of literature that shows that the most effective treatment for insomnia is cognitive-behavioral.

What does it consist of?

Teaching patients to prepare their minds for sleep by avoiding thoughts that keep them awake.

What do we know about nightmares?

They are very common in children and are not a problem unless they are extremely unpleasant. The second thing is having recurring nightmares. I have treated people suffering from PTSD who repeat the same nightmares for 30, 50, and 60 years.

What’s your sleep ritual?

Always go to bed at the same time, close your eyes and sleep, and this is something we all have done in childhood. What did you do when you put your kids to bed?

Tell them a story.

He has to treat himself like a child: there is time to rest and then time to sleep. Many people work long hours and this causes stress; And we already know, cell phones and computers don’t help us. 50 years ago very few people had sleep problems.

Do smart pajamas work?

It contains a gel that cools the body’s infrared heat emissions, promoting longer, deeper sleep.

And the smart pillow?

Record the quality of rest. There are thousands of these types of tools and treatments and none have been studied, but the placebo effect may work.

What are we left with?

My advice is to prioritize sleep. If you do not get enough sleep, your day will be spoiled and you will become irritable.